Modern data centers are frequently built using Fibre Channel fabrics to provide secure, reliable, and scalable computing power. A Fibre Channel fabric may use interconnected Fibre Channel switches to connect hundreds (if not thousands or more) computer systems in a data center to a storage area network (SAN). Each switch in a Fibre Channel fabric consumes an available Fibre Channel (FC) domain value, and the Fibre Channel standard has a physical limit of 239 domains (and a practical limit of even smaller number of domains). This limits the maximum number of FC switches in a FC fabric.
At the same time, blade chassis have become a popular technique to increase the density in the number of computer systems present in a given rack. Currently, e.g., blade chassis are available that provide 128 distinct physical computing systems within the confines of a single rack enclosure. Further, with the use of system virtualization, the number of distinct computing systems per rack can go even higher. Blade servers are frequently configured with a “blade switch,” which provides a switching device, such as a Fibre Channel switch. The blade switch connects the servers within the blade chassis to external switches in the Fibre Channel fabric of a data center. However, each blade switch typically consumes one of the limited domains in the FC fabric, which can lead to the exhaustion of FC domains. Accordingly, as the number of edge switches grows, managing the use of FC domain IDs becomes an important concern.